Editor’s Note: The term ‘off-piste’, for those
unfamiliar with it, is used here to mean ‘deviating from what is
expected’.

I wrote last time about that ‘dead time’ when, for whatever reason,
you find you’ve not played, read, noodled, written or perhaps even
thought about Traveller for a while. But I
don’t worry about those moments because, as I said, ideas will stew and
“emerge when they’re ready”.

For those who’ve been following my once-every-other-month running of
The Traveller Adventure may also recall
that we’ve been spending a couple of days on Carsten, between the
chapters ‘First Call at Zila’ and ‘Wolf at the Door’. At first, I was
just going to spend one evening on some lightweight events to show what
a backwater it was, but there was such an outcry about missing Day Two
when I proposed at the end to skip on to Aramanx, that I promised them
another evening on planet.

However, what with holidays and the dead time, I’d given it no
thought at all beyond the fact that it would it involve a mine and
archaeological dig site they’d expressed some interest in when touring
the thrill-a-minute Museum of Geology. So, the weekend before our
Thursday in the pub, I’d intended to hatch some kind of plan. Nothing
came; I had other things to do; displacement activities leapt out at me.
I went to work on Monday and began thinking about it on the bus but
still with no real idea. Then in the small hours of Tuesday morning an
idea came and I knew I was on to something.

Fortunately, I no longer work on Wednesdays, so I had all of that day
to come up with a local area map, a diagram of the underground mine
workings, a key NPC and to study how to put on a faux-Russian accent
(for said NPC). I cobbled together a couple of pages of notes which I
was printing out on Thursday morning and by lunchtime actually felt I
was ready for the evening in the pub. Better yet, it seemed to go
reasonably well (I’m never quite sure!) despite the fact that two of our
number were missing including one playing the archaeologist for who whom
the dig site had been part of the draw. (I scaled that segment right
back and it possibly made the whole two days considered as a whole that
much better.)

Perhaps it was the pressure of the deadline, perhaps it was the
couple of months ‘off’, perhaps it was just well-timed inspiration, but
my worries over having nothing to run and my fears about overshadowing
the main plot of The Traveller Adventure
proved groundless. The players seemed content, I felt I’d played my best
NPC ever (not a high bar, admittedly) and I’ve come away inspired enough
to send the missing players (and the Traveller
Mailing List) a detailed write up, as well as turning the whole sideshow
into its very own 12,000 word adventure (if I can use the word adventure
so loosely).

In short, going off piste from the written text has been well worth
it!